


Askew

by newbandnamethx



Category: Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers: Shattered Glass
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Emotional Manipulation, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-26
Updated: 2020-12-26
Packaged: 2021-03-10 21:26:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,072
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28333824
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/newbandnamethx/pseuds/newbandnamethx
Summary: Starscream winds up in an alternate universe as a punishment for his usual insubordination. Who knew all it would take for Starscream and Skyfire to end up on the same side was an alternate universe? However things are revealing themselves to be more subtly off than they at first seemed
Relationships: Jetfire | Skyfire/Starscream (Transformers)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 27





	Askew

His punishment for blowing not only the mission, but the energon mine and several underlings sky high, loomed ominously in front of him. The space bridge to the uninformed fool, looked just like any other. It glowed hazily, light almost inviting.

He eyed the bridge distrustfully. Starscream of course, knew better than to trust the thing Shockwave cobbled together in that dismal lab of his.

“We don’t have all day, Starscream, let’s get this over with,” Megatron drawled impatiently behind him. Disarmed, defenseless, and leaking energon from several wounds he’d sustained during his botched coup attempt, Starscream really didn’t seem to have much choice. Just as he was gathering up the dignity and courage to march through the portal with all the grace and arrogance he certainly did not feel internally, someone shoved him.

With a last, longing glance back at his trine, Starscream fell through the portal. He caught a glimpse of Thundercracker’s tight, concerned face, and Skywarp’s nervously grinning one. Knowing the idiot, Skywarp probably thought that the teleportation bridge was no big deal. 

Perhaps he thought Starscream was getting teleported to deal with a mine infested with corrupted insecticon vermin, or to clear out a rural human settlement from an area of interest. Megatron afterall, hadn’t explained much about his punishment or the space bridge itself.

It turned out, in a vast continuity of dimensions, in most of them they were all dead, the universe was devoid of life, or some other bizarre take. This dimension they had found, and been investigating for a while, was not only the first to return any hint of Cybertronian life, but the first to return indications that the Cybertronian life was flourishing.

So that led to this.

His punishment, his task, was to spend a full twenty four hours in the new dimension gathering intel and then return to the dropoff point if he survived. 

Starscream had landed on his hands and knees, his limbs entrenched in snow. He hated snow. The cold. Ice especially. He could tolerate it in space, ice came and went in quiet little crystals that shattered one’s reflection into fractals, silent and crystalline in their beauty. That, he could respect, admire even. 

But in a terrestrial environment, ice was something more ominous, more threatening, waiting around every corner just to seal you away from-

Starscream let out a heavy exvent before forcing himself to stand. He surveyed the world around him. Snowy barren expanse as far as the optic could scan. Perfect. Even worse, gobs of the stuff rained down on him gently. He held out a servo to catch some and examined it closely. Small, perfect crystals of ice, intricate and symmetrical in nature. The bit of snow he held melted quickly from the heat of his frame.

Starscream shook off his servo hastily in disgust and scanned around him again. Just under the ominous grey clouds he thought he caught the barest hint of a contrail-

“Starscream, eager to stir up faction drama again?” A voice called to him. Starscream hiked up his wings and turned, raising his arm up to fire a nonexistent nullray. Right. Punishment. Which in the Decepticons usually equated to a lukewarm death sentence. 

Instead he was forced to duck and roll quickly as a lazily aimed blast was fired toward his helm. Starscream squinted at his opponent. He looked eerily similar to one of the Autobot grunts he had sparred with on occasion. He was small, light on his feet, and his plating blended with the snow except for a purple streak.

“So, what’s with the new look, you trying to go undercover in our faction again? Think that will work a second time?” The Autobot rushed him and as he did so, Starscream caught sight of the insignia on his chest, almost mistaking it for the Decepticon one.

“No clue what you’re on about,” Starscream sniped as he swiped out with one of his pedes, aiming to knock the Autobot off balance. He succeeded, the other bot seeming surprised as he landed on his back, Starscream standing over him.

“I think you’re running out of soft spots to exploit,” the other bot sneered up at him, trying to look menacing despite his clear loss.

Starscream snorted, that did sound like him. “I take it I’ve gotten on Prime’s bad side have I?”

“Prime? Do you have more processor damage than usual?” The other bot half laughed.

“I’ll show you processor damage,” Starscream half snarled before stepping on the other bot’s arm and divesting him of his weapon as he ignored the bot’s howl of pain. It wasn’t much, some sort of paltry laser gun, but it would do.

“So, if your leader isn’t Prime, then who is it?” Starscream asked as he delivered a kick to the bot who had rolled over on his side, clutching his injured servo.

“What in Primus happened to you? Who even are you?” the bot snarled at him. 

Starscream surveyed the frozen waste, squinting in the direction that the Autobot’s footsteps indicated he had come from. 

“Yes, that is a good question,” he hummed absentmindedly. Just as he was about to give up making out any sort of building or structure in the distance he heard a quiet thump behind him. Afraid his Autobot captive had already gotten back up he spun on his heel and fired his gun on reflex.

It pinged uselessly off gleaming black plating as narrow red optics stared at him with mirth dancing inside them. Starscream first glanced down at the Autobot on the ground, the one he had bested, then slowly he drug his gaze upwards. Starscream drew his optics up, up into the familiar face he had so dreaded seeing. 

Had his frame type not been so unique, he might’ve had trouble recognizing him. There was a thin raised line of metal across his face, a diagonal cut across the bridge of Skyfire’s nose that stretched from his brow down across to his mid cheek. 

“Starscream?” the voice, that eerily familiar voice, had shivers running up his struts as the soft snow fell down around them. Curiosity, edged with something else he couldn’t quite put his finger on was plain in his tone. Something about the way he spoke was sharper, colder, in a way that sent a spike of intrigue through Starscream’s processor.

“It’s not like you to be bereft of words, or to bear my presence longer than you have to,” Skyfire leered, and how foreign that expression was on what Starscream was used to seeing as a soft and kind face. 

“You look different,” Starscream murmured, his voice coming out unintentionally soft. A part of him itched to reach out and touch Skyfire, but refrained. His shot had landed just to the left of the Autobot insignia. Starscream had to squint at it just to make sure it was an Autobot insignia, it being purple.

“I could say the same. You also seem to be quite a better shot than I remembered,” Skyfire said, hitching up the corners of his mouth in a smile that was nowhere near as open or carefree as the one the Skyfire he knew would’ve made. There was something melancholic to it that had Starscream’s spark aching in a peculiar way.

“Well you,” Starscream struggled to keep up the witty, lightly biting banter, but he drew short at the realization that he didn’t know this Skyfire at all, and talking more would just illuminate that fact. He wasn’t yet sure if that was a good thing or not. Starscream instead opted to let their conversation trail off into awkward silence.

“You’re not from here are you?” Skyfire asked, and Starscream at once understood the layers to what he was asking. Skyfire was an astute mech, regardless of the universe it seemed, and this one appeared to be much less blinded by idealism than the mech he knew back home.

“No, I’m not,” he replied, looking at Skyfire steadily, waiting to gauge his response.

Things were different with Skyfire, unlike most mecha, conversations with him never felt like a subtle power struggle or ideological battle. He supposed, despite all that had gone wrong between them, a part of him trusted Skyfire innately.

“Would you come back to my base with me?” Skyfire asked, tilting his helm with the question. It was a habit his Skyfire had as well, and Starscream felt his spark warm at the gesture. 

“I am here to make contact,” Starscream muttered as he remembered his whole punishment situation again. Skyfire eyed him shrewdly for a moment before his expression lightened. 

“Excellent, you have enough fuel to fly about fifty miles?” he asked cheerily.

Starscream bit his lip, he’d been receiving reduced rations as part of his punishment. He probably did have fifty miles in him, but it would be cutting things close. Not to mention his wounds, while not severe, did ache quite a bit.

While Starscream was deliberating that question, Skyfire stepped closer to him and Starscream couldn’t help that his spark felt jittery at his approach. He tried to leap back as Skyfire got intrusively close, but faster than Starscream could register, Skyfire had him in his grip, servo coming up around his waist to pull Starscream closer, in what was beginning to feel like a very intimate gesture.

He leaned over a bit, face coming close to Starscream’s as his other servo reached to hold Starscream's own. As he grasped it, he smiled, red optics alight with warmth, intrigue, familiarity and all the things Starscream had missed so dearly from his interactions with Skyfire.

“It’s a wonder to be flying with you again, in whatever form you manifested to me,” Skyfire murmured lowly, and Starscream turned his head sharply as he felt his face grow warm. 

“Well yes, it’s good to know you still function, I suppose,” he replied, somewhat testily.

Skyfire laughed and then ignited his thrusters, servo still grasping Starscream’s own, yanking him up into the air with him. He lifted Starscream up to be level with him, clutching him to his chest so that their cockpits touched.

“Hey,” Starscream snarled, and Skyfire looked down at his angry and slightly flustered expression with nothing more than amusement in his optics. Starscream glanced down to see that the bot he had incapaciated was still lying on the ground, short of his weapon, in the middle of the icy wilderness.

“Isn’t he with you?” Starscream asked as he turned his helm back to look at Skyfire.

“Bumblebee needs to learn a lesson in what it means to make peaceful contact,” Skyfire said, not a hint of pity in his voice. Starscream found himself being drawn in by this version of Skyfire, with his firm demeanor and aura of power, mixed in with the elements of Skyfire he was familiar with. 

He realized the mech reminded him of Megatron at the start. When they had both been young and naive and filled with idealism. He had a softer edge to him, Starscream could sense it.

“How did he find me?” Starscream asked. He had missed this. Flying so close to another bot and with so much leisure. The art of flying as a form of bonding, platonic or otherwise, seemed to have been in slow decline throughout the war. It used to be the Vosian equivalent of a jaunt with a friend or a romantic stroll on the beach. 

But all that was sparse or entirely lost now, what was still there was fast fading. The meaning, the subtlety, the language of flight.

“We detected a massive energy disturbance, a rip in space and time itself, the kind generated by certain quantum jump engines, but on a much larger scale,” Skyfire stated, looking down at Starscream amused.

“Whoever calculated where you landed did a good job, but I don’t think anywhere on Earth could’ve masked that kind of disturbance.”

“Figures,” Starscream grumbled. Of course anything Shockwave orchestrated would be putting him in the line of fire in some manner.

“Now answer me a question, what does this insignia mean?” Skyfire reached out and brushed the purple Decepticon insignia on his wing. Starscream twitched his wing away from the touch on reflex.

“Not much lately,” Starscream muttered under his breath before looking up into an expectant Skyfire.

“Our faction stands for freedom of the lower classes, equality for all, and the toppling of the Autobot regime, especially in regards to that of the dark shadow cast by the Primacy,” Starscream droned in a bored monotone, reciting his recruitment speech from memory. 

Realizing he had just insulted Skyfire’s faction, Starscream smiled nervously and added, “Autobot’s seem to have quite a different philosophy here than back home.”

“I see,” Skyfire murmured, but his tone did not sound displeased. 

“I don’t suppose this will put us at odds now, will it?” Starscream asked nervously. A part of him desperately hoped for a bit more time with this Skyfire before things inevitably went sour.

Skyfire smiled broadly, “On the contrary, I think your arrival here is quite the lucky happenstance.”

Through the haze of falling snow, a mountain range rose up, offering change from the vast frozen waste that Starscream had been lost in moments before. They flew lower, the beginnings of a forest of pines and firs whirring past them as they did. A time or two Skyfire tilted a wing, just barely scraping a tree and knocking copious amounts of snow from it as he did so. Starscream grinned at the daring gesture, laughing as Skyfire pulled them into a corkscrew.

His laughter cut off abruptly as Skyfire appeared to be preparing to ram into the side of the mountain. Before Starscream could so much as shriek, he passed easily through it. A yawning entrance was now visible, a deep gouge in the earth that only became more apparent as Skyfire dropped lower and lower. He landed gracefully, skidding on the curious metal surface of the cave.

Towards the back of the cave was a deep shaft with a cable dwindling down into the dark. 

“What is this?” Starscream asked as Skyfire set him down on his own pedes and he shuffled nervously back from the shaft. His own voice echoed his question around him in an eerie hollow cadence. Starscream felt an involuntary tremor wrack through him. He didn’t like subterranean spaces.

“This is the last stronghold against Megatronus and his ilk,” Skyfire said, gesturing widely to the open space around him. “The mecha you meet here are those who wish to end the legacy of the Primacy and the matrix itself.”

Starscream took in that statement for a long moment. “Megatron? Megatron has the matrix?”

“Indeed,” Skyfire said, nodding his helm. “Though the Decepticon’s will say otherwise, it was attained through lies and treachery, and the murder of it’s rightful recipient, Optimus. Now Megatronus seeks to consolidate his power and force all who wish to resist him to bow to his will. Here we stand against it.”

“I see,” Starscream said quietly, before asking the next question with no small amount of trepidation. “And your part in this?”

“I succeeded after Optimus’ demise. I still hope for a world in which we can be rid of the matrix and all mecha can live at peace, regardless of their function.”

Starscream bit his lip. It was a dizzying experience to find everything he had known being inverted.

“Now answer me this Starscream,” Skyfire said, placing a servo on his shoulder and looking at him searchingly. “Would you like to help our cause?”

Starscream didn’t answer the question. He debated his options. Going back, back home to his trine to suffer the ridicule of Megatron further, to find himself apart from the mech he’d once cared greatly for, to find his aspirations distorted to a drawn out war of attrition that had long extinguished the meaning of victory.

“I will have to return at some point,” Starscream began hesitantly. “My faction may come looking for me.” 

“I believe I can be of some assistance delaying further intruders into this dimension,” Skyfire said with a sharp smile. “The last thing we’d want is a second Megatron, even if he is aligned with our ideals. I assume he is not without some of the same character flaws.”

Starscream offered no response but a bitter snort. After a moment he asked the question that had been nagging at him since he arrived.

“What happened to….” Starscream hesitated, afraid that maybe asking about his alternate self would remind Skyfire of his apparent feud.

“Ah, this universe’s counterpart, we knew each other a while back. We were close at some point, extremely so,” Skyfire’s optics grew sad as he spoke, taking on an almost misty quality. “Unfortunately we were separated in a snowstorm millions of years back and the Decepticons were the first to find him. Unfamiliar with the ways of the world, he was easily lied to and recruited to a false cause. Though I have tried to sway him, little if anything seems to help. I’m afraid the matrix may hold sway on him.”

“Something similar happened back home,” Starscream said. “My dimension’s version of you was lost under the ice. I always wondered what you would’ve been like had you actually watched the whole war play out.”

“Guess you have your answer,” Skyfire smiled wryly as he spread open his arms and looked down at Starscream. Starscream looked up and he couldn't help but notice how formidable Skyfire looked, though his face was still the same gentle face he had known for all those years, albeit marred by the scar. Starscream paid it no mind, if anything it gave him a rugged quality.

“And are you disappointed?”

Starscream found the honest answer coming to him easy, with stunning clarity, as it used to all that time ago, “No, I don’t think I am.”

\---

“Right so, this is not good,” Thundercracker said, for perhaps the fourth time in the last five minutes. Reports had come back that morning that not only had Starscream not appeared back at the rendezvous point when the scheduled pickup time arrived, but shortly after opening a second time, the bridge portal had winked out and refused to online again.

Shockwave, apparently baffled by the issue, had set to work on repairing it, but so far it appeared the fix would not be an easy one. There had been a great deal of sparking and smoking before the gate had shut off, and Skywarp didn’t need a science degree to know that could be classed as “not a good sign”.

Skywarp rolled his optics as he watched his trinemate pace back and forth across the room.

“Yeah, too bad someone doesn’t, y’know, read Starscream’s comms while he sleeps or something.”

“You read Starscream’s comms?” Thundercracker halted in his pacing to crowd Skywarp anxiously.

“You don’t? It’s better than those human dramas you like so much,” Skywarp snorted. “Anyways, yeah I do, I have Skyfire’s comm frequency just in case Starscream, y’know got caught by the Autobots and Megs didn’t want to negotiate to get him back or something.”

“Skywarp that is an astounding amount of foresight for you,” Thundercracker said, tone full of awe. 

Skywarp decided to ignore the “for you” stipulation and beamed back at his trinemate, preening at the half compliment.

“I know right? Anyways, I commed him about the situation and he thinks he might be able to get someone to help.”

“Really?” Thundercracker asked eagerly, leaning forward slightly with bright optics. Skywarp smiled and practically sat in Thundercracker’s lap, playing back his comm message.

“Hey SF here, think we got a guy who can work on the issue, if we get it up and running and discover we need back up, can we count on you?” the comm flickered off, signaling the end of the message.

“He said we shouldn’t use any dead giveaways about what they’re working on, just in case someone’s listening” Skywarp said by way of explaining the message’s abstractness.

“What did you say in return?” Thundercracker murmured, looking pensive.

“Haven’t yet, figured I’d get your input,” Skywarp said, looking at his trinemate with an uncharacteristic amount of seriousness.

“Assisting Autobots,” Thundercracker started nervously.

“For a cause that ultimately benefits the Decepticons,” Skywarp added. “Tell me you don’t think we’d be massively worse off with Ramjet as air commander or something.” Thundercracker merely responded to that hypothetical with a shiver.

“If Megatron catches us,” Thundercracker started again.

Skywarp snorted, “We’re trined to Starscream, we’re already on borrowed time. Come on TC, tell me you don’t miss the glitch.”

Thundercracker shrugged helplessly, “Of course I do.”

“And tell me you don’t trust Megatron to get this situation back under control, or worse, make it backfire.”

Thundercracker hadn’t even thought of that, but now that he did, his optics widened in horror. “He could start a cross dimensional war.”

“Oh yeah, that’s just for starters. We all know Megs is a pro at snowballing situations way worse than anyone could’ve anticipated,” Skywarp leaned in as he talked, and Thundercracker closed his optics and shuddered.

Thundercracker pursed his lips, “I guess you’re right.”

“‘Course I am,” Skywarp said smugly.

Thundercracker sighed, and for the five hundredth time, internally cursed Starscream for getting himself into this situation in the first place. Meanwhile, next to him, Skywarp opened his comm.

\---  
Skyfire looked down at his comm as it lit up. The message was in text format, two words. We’re in. A part of him felt relieved while another part of him thrilled with the anxiety tied to what he was doing. His continued relationship with Starscream was already harrowing and would most likely get him thrown in the brig for fraternization if discovered.

But aiding two decepticons in using secret weapons technology so that they could perform an unauthorised rescue mission? No less for a bot that, in all honesty, would be better off dead from the Autobot perspective. He was basically asking to be shot for treason, not that the Autobots even did that, at least not while Optimus still had veto power against Prowl’s violent fantasies.

Skyfire’s optics drifted over to the teal mech working fastidiously in front of him.

“Er so, Brainstorm,” Skyfire approached his labmate and friend cautiously. “I had a question.”

Brainstorm picked up the gun he had been working on and aimed it at a nearby wall, saying “Shoot.”

“So you know that Decepticon I’m friends with, the one who gets you stuff in exchange for you giving us an encrypted, untraceable way to communicate?” Skyfire stated bluntly, because though Brainstorm was one who could talk himself in circles for hours, he didn’t seem to appreciate that trait in others. Especially if they were asking for a favor.

“Yeah?” Brainstorm’s voice ticked up with a bit of interest. Skyfire had never told him exactly who it was, despite Brainstorm’s attempts to guess and pry. As shifty as Brainstorm could be, he didn’t seem to take it upon himself to hack the comm channel to find out, which Skyfire appreciated.

“Well he’s in trouble,” Skyfire started.

“Sucks for him,” Brainstorm said, interest dying off as he turned over the gun in his servos and peered down the muzzle, before pulling the trigger. A dull click sounded and nothing happened.

“Yeah but here’s the thing, he’s in trouble in an alternate dimension. Turns out that project he was leaking documents to you about, well they pulled it off,” Skyfire said. Brainstorm set his gun down and looked at Skyfire a long moment.

“You pulling my trigger?” he asked, quirking an eyebrow.

“Er, no, I don’t think so,” Skyfire replied uneasily. “I think he might be in real danger and-.”

“Stop, you had me at alternate dimension, no need for the sob story,” Brainstorm cut him off as he shuffled over to his lab table and began sifting through documents.

“Just please, don’t tell anyone,” Skyfire said after a moment's hesitation.

“What do you think I am, an idiot? Of course not,” Brainstorm huffed as he rooted around through the drawers in his desk.

Skyfire watched him for a bit, a peculiar lightness entering his spark as he did so. He realized, for the first time since Starscream had gone missing, he really felt like there was a genuine chance he could see his long time friend/”it’s complicated” again.

**Author's Note:**

> Here's my take on SG, it has a while to go till it seems a bit more ... shattered glassy lolol. Though I'm not doing the take of "SG autobots are mustache twirling 1D villians", they'll be a lil more complicated lmao.
> 
> Ay ladies and gents, we're at the end of the year just about. Next year I'll be aiming to update ongoing fics every one to two months minimum, so bear with me. This is also the second to last fic I'll be starting as I want to limit the ongoing fics I have so I can finish them faster. Anyways, thanks for being kind and reading this year! See you in the next one.
> 
> This might get upped to being explicit, kinda depends on my mood, if it doesn't I might write a porny oneoff and link it in this story somewhere. Always end up being a bit indecisive about that kinda thing.


End file.
